Welcome! My name is Bernie McCafferty and this website contains information I've
collected while searching for my ancestors. I have
accumulated quite a few records that I will be posting to help other researchers
looking for relatives from Clew Bay, County Mayo, Ireland and Cleveland, Ohio.
No frills, no dancing shamrocks, just the facts. And a lot of Irish names.

I've decided
to turn pro and start a company called Cleveland
Genealogical Research in order to provide genealogical content
(births, baptism, marriage, cemetery records, gravestone transcriptions,
etc.) on CD-ROM. As with my website, my original focus will be
Cleveland and County Mayo. I am working with William Masterson to
turn his Mayo transcriptions into PDF eBook format.
Fifteen books on Newport, Westport, Achill, Burrishoole, and Ballycroy are
now available including the recently released "Early Westport Marriages
1814-1857". Check here for an index of publications and
a list of other CDs.

Also, due to
popular demand on the Cleveland Irish bulletin board, I've added a map
of Cleveland in 1835 including Whiskey
Island.

Most of my Irish ancestors came from the towns and islands around Clew Bay on
the west coast of County Mayo, Ireland. They survived the Great
Famine only to be driven from their native land by other social and economic
ills with most emigrating to Cleveland, Ohio between 1878-1890. Hence the
name of my website. On my father's side,
the surnames and families are:

For a family reunion in 2001 we published a book called "From the Shores of
Eire To the Shores of Erie - The History of Clan McCafferty" documenting my
ancestors. I have included some of the pages from this book under
Clan McCafferty and will be adding more
information and photos as I go through my files.

My mother's Irish roots
came from the Newport area on the north side of Clew Bay:

McLoughlin from Sandhill and Knockmanus, also called Tiernaur, near
Newport

There are at least 10 different
McLoughlin families
from that general area
around Newport
that I am trying to connect into what I believe were two different families in
the early 1800's. A relative, Brendan McLoughlin in Sandhill, indicated that in the mid-1800's
there were two Patrick McLoughlins - Pat Thomas and Pat Seamus, probably named
after their fathers. I am currently researching each family trying to find
connections that would confirm their relationships. These families are:

If you have any information or think you are related to any of these
families please send me an
email!

Cleveland, Ohio

One of the first questions that someone from Cleveland will ask upon meeting
a fellow Clevelander is "What side of town are you from, east or west?".
Cleveland is a city divided by a natural geographic boundary, the Cuyahoga River, into an East and West side,
each having a distinct style and personality. Even the Irish in Cleveland
are different depending on which side of the river the settled on.
For the most part, my ancestors all settled on the west side, originally starting in an area known
as "The Angle" and then moving steadily westward. Once in Cleveland, they
usually married other Mayo immigrants from the same areas of Westport, Newport,
and Achill Island. I have a theory that all of the Irish in Cleveland are
somehow related.

In trying to identify potential relatives in Cleveland, I took the other approach
of trying to eliminate as many as possible that weren't related. While
this did help find one unknown brother of my Great Grandfather John Gill, it
left me with a lot of great data that wasn't in my direct line. It also left
me convinced that 85% of the McCafferty's in Cleveland were originally
Cafferkey's from Mayo. The rest are my relatives. The end result is that I have a large collection of
Cleveland McCaffertys and Gills from the 1860-1940 range, most of them not
related to me but hopefully these files can assist other researchers.